Light Takes the Multi-Camera Trend to the Extreme With a Nine-Lens Camera Phone

When the first dual lens camera came out people were a bit sceptical, but accepting. Then Huawei pushed out a phone with three lenses and people started wondering whether this was going to be an ongoing trend. Now camera-maker Light is taking the multi-camera trend to its extreme pretty early on, with reports that it's developing a phone packing a ridiculous nine camera lenses.

The Washington Post is reporting that the camera maker has the crazy device in the works, and is due to be released before the end of the year. That's despite the fact the company only has prototypes at the moment, with various versions of the device including between five and nine camera sensors. Why? Who knows. Bragging rights, maybe, being the first company to offer three times the number of sensors on a smartphone. The Washington Post also claims the phone will offer 64MP images, with excellent low light performance and depth effects.

This isn't the first time Light has been in the news for adding a ridiculous number of sensors to its products. The L16 camera had 16 sensors, and would take ten pictures that would be stitched together to form a giant 52MP image. Unfortunately it wasn't very well received. It was a bit of a pain to use, had some issues with oversaturation, and din;t have particularly great low light support.

Of course it's been nearly three years since the L16 hit the scene, and no doubt things have changed in the interim. Unfortunately a smartphone is more than just a camera, so there are a lot of new challenges the company is going to have to overcome - especially when you have to compete with the likes of Apple, Samsung, and the rest. The biggest issue is that if it can get the camera part right, every company under the sun will be rushing to copy it on their own phones. Being first is a bit meaningless is the thing that sets your device apart is available everywhere else.